Post/Author/DateTime	Post
dungeondweller 02-15-07, 01:20 PM	Essentially I'm wanting to create a conversion system so that all armor, magic or otherwise, can be converted easily to my new system of handling armor... Like, reduce Armor Bonus by Armor Check penalty, but grant Armor Bonus as DR. I think I can crunch the numbers and make a system that works pretty well for accomplishing that, without throwing off game balance, on my own. Where I'm falling apart in my thinking is natural armor. Most AC-increasing effects (deflection, etc) can operate the same way they do now, but natural armor is posing a problem. Anyone have thoughts for converting natural armor to DR without making things like Great Wyrm Gold Dragons impossible to damage? Also, since these creates have no "armor check penalty", there's no downside to the bulk of their armor, so it seems like natural armor could be a way to "cheat". Any thoughts on resolving this?
ShinoAburame 02-15-07, 01:50 PM	The system I use, most things that increase AC (like spells and crap) still do. Just armor and shields do damage reduction. They offer a value of damage reduction equal to what they would otherwise offer AC bonus. But, they cannot reduce that damage to zero. If damage would be reduced to zero it's instead reduced to one. Natural armor you should base on common sense of the monster. Dragons are big honkin' masses, it's easy as hell to "hit" them, but damaging may be a bit more difficult. True they'll have awesome damage reduction. But then again they're friggin dragons! There's a reason they compose up to half the name of our rpg passtime... Dealing damage isn't all that difficult. Why, in a gestalt game (which I know is broken to begin with, but bare with me, I could've done this with multiclassing too) I had a monk/cleric who was merely level three doing an average 18 damage with every unarmed attack! (Unarmed attack+Inflict wounds) At level 3 if all his flurry of blows succeeded that'd be 108 damage! Just on average! As you can see, the system for character classes is jank. But what can I say, I like my games gritty. Adventurers should fear the monsters, not monsters fear the adventurers... NOTE: Even if the GM had taken my advise to not let unarmed damage stack with inflict wounds, I would've still on average been dealing 11 damage per attack. And with six possible attacks to work with in one round, well, it's no wonder people say the monk/divine classes are broken. I don't think it's any quincidence the monk is a psuedo-divine class.
dungeondweller 02-15-07, 02:50 PM	Yes, but if you do the math, the higher end dragons would have DR's in the 30s and 40s (I think, would have to check the numbers again) for each attack. Thus your monk would be doing 1 point of damage for every attack.
dungeondweller 02-15-07, 05:13 PM	Yeah, after looking up the numbers.... Great Wyrm Gold Dragon has +40 Natural Armor. But I can't see allowing them to have a 40 DR. A 20th level Fighter with a +5 Greatsword and a 34 Strength (+12) who Power Attacks to the extent of his ability (-20 / +40) will attack (assuming Weapon Focus and Weapon Spec, +1 / +2) at +18/+13/+8/+3 for 2d6+60 each for an average damage per attack of around 66, or 26 after the dragon's DR. Since the dragon's AC is effectively a 2, the fighter will be expected to do 104 points of damage for all 4 attacks, which doesn't sound too horrible. But let's take that same fighter and give him a longsword, just in case he's gone longsword and shield for a better AC... A 20th level Fighter with a +5 Longsword and a 34 Strength (+12) who Power Attacks to the extent of his ability (-20 / +20, because it's not 2-handed anymore) will attack (assuming Weapon Focus and Weapon Spec, +1 / +2) at +18/+13/+8/+3 for 1d8+32 each for an average damage per attack of around 36, max 40, which loosely translates to 0 damage... none... On a full power attack with a +5 longsword and 34 Strength, the 20th level fighter can't possibly damage the dragon... Not sure that works at all.
Pizzini3000 02-15-07, 05:52 PM	http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/unearthedDefence.html#armor-as-damage-reduction This is from Unearthed Arcana. It works well.
The_Levitator 02-15-07, 10:04 PM	I agree with Pizzini3000. The UA variant works pretty well. My players lean a little grittier, so I made Natural Armor scale 1for every 3 points of NA instead of 1 for every 4. We also use the Iron Heroes variable DR (full plate, for example would absorb 1d8 damage, instead of 8 every time). It seems to feel a little better that armor doesn't cover perfectly evenly over your body (even full plate I'm told has weak spots). I was lucky enough to get one of the regulars at the DM Genie boards to create a variable DR script for me. Not only does it have variable DR, but it also automatically tracks physical damage to armor and shields. It's great to see my players actually picking up armorer skills to keep their gear in shape!:D
theotherdraxen 02-15-07, 10:52 PM	I tried armor as DR. As was pointed out to me: 1. It's too time consuming mid-battle, and adds more complexity than the average player wants to put up with. 2. The game is not balanced around armor providing DR. I really advise you not to implement this system.
ticattack 02-15-07, 11:24 PM	It's too time consuming mid-battle, and adds more complexity than the average player wants to put up with.I... wait... what? As someone who uses the AC-as-DR variant as sort of a "default house rule" in my games, I've heard that before. I'm curious as to how it adds so much more time and complexity. You still have an AC score. There's a single step more in working it out, but it's written down afterwards. Is remembering 14 so much harder than 16? In combat, you compare the attack roll against your AC, exactly like normal. You then subtract a single number from the damage dealt. You... no, ok, that's more or less it. It's a single step extra, and a minor one at that (hands up who can't manage to subtract 3?). Yes, it's done repeatedly at high levels, but still, it's so incredibly minor... if you're getting bogged down by the mind-melting difficulty of "Hmm... 12 minus 2...", it ain't at all good. I realise that, at higher levels, there's a lot of these minor subtractions, but considering it's not going to get past 4/- or so, you should just be able to fly through it. Barbarians don't seem to have any major issues with it, nor do dread necromancers. From memory, warlocks get some minor DR as well. To each his own, I guess, but I struggle to comprehend how this could be time consuming, unless you've got a party of hasted monks. 2. The game is not balanced around armor providing DR.I can't really speak for high levels, as my experience with anything above about 15 is sorely lacking, but at lower levels, perhaps the only difference I've seen is that PCs aren't quite as likely to fall from a single lucky strike or Sneak Attack. That 1 or 2 less damage doesn't sound like much, but when you've only got 20 or so, it really does help. A lot of folks don't like it. I'm not sure why - as I said, I like it so much that it's now more or less a default house rule for any game I run. For the OP, I reccomend you give it a go, tell your players it's a trial - maybe even run a one or two session adventure as a separate trial. If you like it - great! You've got what you're after. If you don't, no harm, no foul. You can forget it, or find/make something else. But give it a go.
Polaris 02-16-07, 12:01 AM	Armor as DR in DnD is a terrible idea. Don't take my word for it; play an Iron Heroes campaign and you will see for yourself. The problem is that the game and some key feats like power-attack were not designed with DR for armor in mind. What happens then is that characters wind up with grossly limited AC which invites warrior types to max out their power-attack often in excess of any reasonable armor DR. Thus the combat system becomes binary: Either attacks are completely pointless (don't penetrate DR), or DR becomes effectively a non-issue. -Polaris
The_Levitator 02-16-07, 12:14 AM	I'm with ticattack on this one. A game is as balanced as a group wants it to be. My group has no interest in playing beyond 12th level in D&D because of the power creep, and the overabundance of power compared to the "regular" folks in that world is stretching suspension of disbelief a little too much for our tastes. Iron Heroes is a really popular game that seems to have a lot of satisfied customers and Armor As DR is built into the core rules. I even went to far as to make Armor as DR even more important at low to mid levels. I swap out the AC bonus point for point into DR and make it variable, just like Iron Heroes, and it works fine. Yeah, a guy in full plate can absorb up to 8 pts. per strike. How many 1st-4th level characters can even afford full plate? Wouldn't a low level character be intimidated and afraid to fight the guy in the tin can with their rusty shortsword anyway? My players have no desire to be invincible characters and love the threat of danger and the actual risk of losing those characters. In the end, it's all about the flavor your group is going for. My group likes gritty, tactical combat, thus we use a lot of variants. Heck, we even play diceless (dodges lightning bolt from D&D gods)to speed up combat exponentially. If tracking all this stuff is hard (which I find it to be) try a program like DM Genie. It's what I use and it tracks everything for me automatically. I don't see how a DM going pen and paper and dice could resolve combats as quickly as we do while still following all of the rules and using the amount of variants we use (2 of my players are 20+ year RPG'ers who both DM and have also told me this). Resolving actions quickly in combat was very important to my group and I found ways to accomodate them. A couple of my players screamed blasphemy initially at the thought of not chucking little pieces of plastic around to determine results. Now, they won't play any other way because they say it takes too long and the dice are distracting from visualizing the battle unfolding. We use Armor as DR(the DM Genie script I had made even tracks the physical damage to armor and shields automatically), Opposed Defense Roll, Defense Bonus, Facing Variant, and our houserule called Battle Fatigue. Is it balanced? For our group, YES! I have 2 groups now in fact and I haven't had any quitters yet (well 1, but because he moved away). It's the DM's job to make the game as fun as possible for their players. If the players like RAW, then don't add a bunch of variants. If the players have a different vision of how the game should play that isn't RAW, then use every darn idea you can find out there and see what they like the best. :D Nobody on these boards has the perfect advice for you, because we aren't running your game. Only you and your group can decide what works best for your group. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, listen to what everyone here has to say for ideas to develop your own feelings about how you want to game, and don't take anyone's word here as gospel. One guy tells you that Armor As DR is broken and I tell you it's not. Well guess what, we're both right! If you are new to trying out new things in your game, just remember that the terms broken and unworkable and unbalanced are thrown around very liberally in the gaming community. What's broken for 1 group may work beautifully for another (as seen by the multitude of opinions on mechanics). Broken and Unbalanced are subjective terms. I know that there are statisticians who have broken D&D down to the 33rd decimal point and will drown people with analysis to "prove" or "disprove" game mechanics and their "balance", but the game isn't ALL about numbers. It's about a DM telling a really great story that involves their players and gives them the chance to be the stars of that story. The only rules you need in your game are the ones that help you tell the best story possible. :D
Polaris 02-16-07, 12:26 AM	The_Levitator et al, All I can do is give my experiences as a veteran player in both Iron Heroes and DnD to caution everyone that using Armor as DR is a really, really, really bad idea. One of the biggest balance problems in Iron Heroes is that there isn't enough passive defense/flat-footed AC at high levels to properly keep power-attack in check. That's not just at high levels, this effect happens at all levels. The problem is that the d20 system assumes that at any given level/CR, you (and your enemies) will fall (more or less) within a certain band of ACs. In normal DnD, this actually works (the difference between AC rating of various classes is suprisingly small once magical items/defenses are accounted for). When you take away armor as AC and replace it with DR, the system falls apart. Make no mistake, it's quite possible for a good solid combat system to be built around (the more correct) assumption that armour gives DR. In fact Hero, GURPS, and (via Soak) WWGS and SR all do this. However, those systems also don't have upwardly scaling attack checks and d20 does. That's the killer. -Polaris
The_Levitator 02-16-07, 01:03 AM	Hey Polaris, Do you think that using a Defense Bonus helps at all with AaDR? At first we we using the UA version of the Defense Bonus, but I wanted to try something a little simpler. So now, we use 1/2 BAB for Defense Bonus. It seems like the 2 are kind of designed to go together, but as I have a huge interest in Iron Heroes but no playing experience with it (I would if I could figure out a way to make it work with DM Genie ;) ) I'd like to get your perspective on using the 2 together. Characters that want to go toe to toe can strap on the tin cans and the Defense Bonus would seem to even the score a bit with unarmored or lightly armored and more nimble characters. In the UA variant, a player has to choose between their Armor bonus and their Defense Bonus. Do you think it should still be that way with an AaDR system in place using a different Defense Bonus? If we are using a Defense Bonus that is only 1/2 BAB instead of the UA variant, would it be safe to allow the 2 to stack, but maybe offer a small penalty for medium armor and a larger penalty for heavy armor? I was thinking of maybe using the Max Dex for armor as a guide for limiting a Defense Bonus for an armored character. What I'm doing now is limiting a characters Defense Bonus to be no higher than the armor's Max Dex Bonus. This effectively takes the Defense Bonus away from heavy armor types naturally and really limits medium armor types. Does that seem somewhat sound?
Polaris 02-16-07, 01:14 AM	The_Levitator, I think that if you do use Armor as DR, you pretty much have to use some kind of class defense bonus system. The thing to remember is that this defense bonus has to replace the AC that you are losing with your armor (including enchantments). Iron Heroes is a good place to start. The huge problem with Iron Heroes is that IH made class defense bonus an active dodge based defense. To keep the d20 system from breaking, class defense really has to be a flatfooted armor-like defense. As for class defense bonus, I personally would use the clerical bab chart topping out at +15 or so for class defense (or something much like it). That would seem to restore ACs to where they belong. [For low armor classes like wizards, I'd made this less of course.] I guess what I am saying is that if you are going to use the armor as DR system, you really should not be limited the class defense bonus much at all (but instead should give more class defense to characters entitled to high armor). Naturally the above would take some playtesting and tweaking. The above suggestion is a first cut guess based on my play experience with armor as DR. -Polaris
The_Levitator 02-16-07, 01:44 AM	I think I'm following you. So, if you would use the cleric BAB as a start, is using just a general 1/2 BAB across the board too little? I was originally going to just make it = a character's BAB, but was afraid it would be too high at higher levels. We pretty much cap out campaigns around 12th level, so I'm mainly focused on making it work up to that point. My reasoning for using a character's BAB is that fighter types have a better BAB than non-fighter types (level for level) so it made sense to me that they would progress better at it. I wanted something simple so I just made it a flat progression across the board instead of individual progressions for each class. I admit to not being the best number cruncher, so I wasn't totally sure how to work it, but I do believe there's a way to make AaDR work. This is how I have it so far, and I'm totally open to tweaking (as you can tell by all the variants we use) AaDR: (using the IH version of a variable DR up to armor's normal AC bonus Defense Bonus: 1/2 BAB, may not exceed Max Dex of armor. So say we take Fighter Bob with a DEX:12. He's a 6th level fighter. Unarmored, he'd have an AC of 15 with no DR. In Chain Mail, he'd have an AC of 14 but have 1d5 DR. In Leather Armor, he'd have an AC of 15 with 1d2 DR In Plate, he'd have an AC of 10 but 1d8 DR If we changed it to DB=BAB Unarmored, he'd have an AC of 18 with no DR In Chainmail, he'd have an AC of 14 with 1d5 DR In Leather, he'd have an AC of 18 with 1d2 DR In Plate, he'd have an AC of 10 with 1d8 DR An even more extreme example would be say a 4th level rogue with an 18 DEX against a fighter in full plate. The Rogue would have a 22 AC, and the fighter would only have a 10, but the fighter would have 1d8 DR. Using a flat progression (either 1/2 BAB or DB=BAB) would it completely throw things off to just give full DR instead of variable? That way, the guy in plate would always have DR 8 in stead of 1d8. I know that makes him failry invulnerable to light weapons, but isn't that worth being a sitting duck in a tin can? It's hard to imagine someone killing a guy in full plate with a dagger (though I do believe entirely possible, anything is in combat). Which one seems more balanced to you, 1/2 BAB or DB=BAB? (I know, I know, I said balance is a subjective word. I still believe that, which is why I keep an open mind on my perception of balance.)
Polaris 02-16-07, 01:56 AM	The_Levitator, Let me quote your example to show what I am talking about: So say we take Fighter Bob with a DEX:12. He's a 6th level fighter. Unarmored, he'd have an AC of 15 with no DR. In Chain Mail, he'd have an AC of 14 but have 1d5 DR. In Leather Armor, he'd have an AC of 15 with 1d2 DR In Plate, he'd have an AC of 10 but 1d8 DR If we changed it to DB=BAB Unarmored, he'd have an AC of 18 with no DR In Chainmail, he'd have an AC of 14 with 1d5 DR In Leather, he'd have an AC of 18 with 1d2 DR In Plate, he'd have an AC of 10 with 1d8 DR Here is the problem. For every point of AC you decrease, you need to add (at least) +2 points to the damage you will absorb because of power-attack. Thus in both cases, you are actually worse off by wearing armor than not wearing armor with the sole exception (in this example) of leather armor. Why? In the first example, you have a difference between an AC of 15 (unarmored) and an AC of 10 (plate mail). That translates into 10 points of bonus damage to the attacker if power-attacking (likely in this sort of system). The armor you get from platemail is only 4.5 DR. Ergo you take more damage when wearing platemail than you do when wearing nothing at all (which goes back to my original point about armor as DR in d20 being a horrible idea). Instead I am suggesting something much more simple. Your class defense bonus is independant of whatever armor you are wearing. Heavy armor has enough drawbacks as it is to deny you armor class (especially given the math I just illustrated). As for class defense bonus, I'd have it (roughtly) based on good (1/1), average (3/4), and poor (1/2) bab progressions with the more armored oriented classes having the best class defense bonuses. I'd certainly give spellcasters poor because spells give enough defense over and above armor as it is. JIMHO. -Polaris
The_Levitator 02-16-07, 02:11 AM	Pardon my thickness, but I think I'm a little loopy from lack of sleep. Now I totally understand where you are coming from, and that makes complete sense to me. And now I see why you would split the progression up like UA does with the good, avg. and poor concept. I REALLY like this idea much better than what we are currently doing. So, just to be sure I completely understand: A 6th lvl. fighter (good) with a 12 DEX wearing chainmail would have an AC of 17 with DR:5. An 6th level wizard (poor)with a 12 DEX would have an AC of 14 with no DR. A 6th level rogue (avg) with an 18 DEX in leather would have an AC of 18 with DR=2. If that's what you are saying, I think I really like that idea. Now, since you have played both D&D and Iron Heroes, do you think static DR or variable DR would be better with this type of DB? BTW, for a person who doesn't like AaDR, you sure seem to have some pretty great ideas on how to make it workable! :)
Polaris 02-16-07, 02:18 AM	Pardon my thickness, but I think I'm a little loopy from lack of sleep. Now I totally understand where you are coming from, and that makes complete sense to me. And now I see why you would split the progression up like UA does with the good, avg. and poor concept. I REALLY like this idea much better than what we are currently doing. So, just to be sure I completely understand: A 6th lvl. fighter (good) with a 12 DEX wearing chainmail would have an AC of 17 with DR:5. An 6th level wizard (poor)with a 12 DEX would have an AC of 14 with no DR. A 6th level rogue (avg) with an 18 DEX in leather would have an AC of 18 with DR=2. Yep, pretty much. If that's what you are saying, I think I really like that idea. Now, since you have played both D&D and Iron Heroes, do you think static DR or variable DR would be better with this type of DB? I would go with static for two reasons. Variable DR (as you've presented it) is less than static DR, i.e. d8 DR is a lot worse than 8 DR. In addition, there is already enough rolling in combat as it is. Rolling for DR adds another and IMHO unnecessary roll. BTW, for a person who doesn't like AaDR, you sure seem to have some pretty great ideas on how to make it workable! :) Glad I can be of help. I like to think that my play experience counts for something ;) That said, I really don't like AaDR for the reasons I have already stated and my suggestions may (and IMHO probably will) only mitigate the problems you are looking at with power-attack....but that's your game and your call and not mine. -Polaris
The_Levitator 02-16-07, 02:44 AM	Well, I'm definitely thankful for the help. And I am serious about finding a way to make it more workable. One of the other reasons I was drawn to this idea in combat is that we run a pretty low magic setting, and 12th level is considered about the top of the food chain. The groups I run seem to favor the down and dirty, tactical, and somewhat more realistic (at least in visualization) combat where the character has more to do with living or dying than their gear. While the AaDR does put a little more weight on the gear in one sense, it seems to add to both the grittiness (people getting hit more but less damage) and the visualization of a more realistic combat (more shots getting in but absorbed by armor). The Defense Bonus would definitely seem to favor more skilled combatants and put a little more of the emphasis on player skill and less on magical items. I think the setting was the thing that initially drew me to Iron Heroes. I love the basic concept of it. And while I've read of the fixes to both the AaDR and magic systems to IH (which seems to indicate it's not the perfect gaming system either :weep: ), the concept still appeals to me (magic more powerful yet rare and unstable with more realistic and tactical combat). I hate to keep bugging you with questions, but I try and stay open minded and always appreciate the insight of others and have just one more question. If a person (like me) were bound and determined to try and craft a world that uses AaDR, is a low magic setting more favorable to this concept? Some of the other variants we are using right now are: Opposed Defensive Roll Variant (DMG) Facing Variant (UA) Shields +1 from RAW houserule (popular houserule on ENworld) Clobbered Variant (DMG) We also don't have instantaneous healing. I created a system at the request of some of my players who didn't like the videogame feel of potion chugging fighters. I basically just slowed the healing down a bit to take minutes instead of seconds, so that healing is still miraculous but not a combat crutch. With these things in place, I'm just trying to appease my players and their idea of what the world their characters live in is like. It's probably worth mentioning that I don't have a single munchkin in my group. Most of them are old-timers (like me) and are mostly interested in the storyline and a good time, not breaking calculators to find loopholes. We are obviously still getting used to 3.5 (almost all are from 2nd Edition or other systems like Rolemaster and Gurps) so we don't mind tweaking and playing around with things because we know it's a simple matter to undo anything we've done. Again, thanks for the great late night conversation and insight! It's always inspiring to find someone who is willing to help me dig a little deeper into areas I want to explore, even when I do so against their advice. ;)
ticattack 02-16-07, 08:24 PM	Armor as DR in DnD is a terrible idea. Don't take my word for it; play an Iron Heroes campaign and you will see for yourself. The problem is that the game and some key feats like power-attack were not designed with DR for armor in mind. What happens then is that characters wind up with grossly limited AC which invites warrior types to max out their power-attack often in excess of any reasonable armor DR.Erm... sorry, let me get this straight: The main part of your problem with AaDR is that Power Attack with a two-handed weapon breaks it? Just out of curiosity, does every monster you face have power attack? Does your entire party? Your meatshields, sure (unless they use TWF or sword'n'board. Or light weapons.), but your scouts/rogues/archers/magic-users? If that's your reasoning, that one feat becomes more powerful... so what? If you play a game where lycanthropes are common foes, silver weapons become more powerful. If you play a game where undead are common, turn undead becomes more powerful. A game with many mages makes the Mage Slayer feat better. Unless every single character - or ok, even half or 2/3 or so - has that feat, it's not a major problem. Let the fighter dish out more damage. Isn't it the job of the DM to make encounters tailored to the party? If he slices and dices through things, bump up the frequency of archers who avoid melee, or toss in a couple of golems or something with obscene DR/natural armour. The idea that a rule is "worthless" because of one feat that is tailored to a specific type of character is, quite frankly, ridiculous. If you have a party consisting entirely of two-hander melee types, then they deserve to be able to cleave through things - and get shot to pieces when they find some archers. If it's just one guy, he's the meatshield, he should be able to wade into combat, if he's focused on just powering through enemies.
Polaris 02-16-07, 08:43 PM	Erm... sorry, let me get this straight: The main part of your problem with AaDR is that Power Attack with a two-handed weapon breaks it? Not quite. My problem is that the power progression in d20 is designed around certain AC values for certain CR levels. AaDR wrecks that. Power-Attack is just the most problematic symptom. Just out of curiosity, does every monster you face have power attack? Does your entire party? Your meatshields, sure (unless they use TWF or sword'n'board. Or light weapons.), but your scouts/rogues/archers/magic-users? Given the physics of the proposed world why wouldn't every intelligent monster have power attack? It's not that hard to qualify for, and it is immensely powerful. If that's your reasoning, that one feat becomes more powerful... so what? If you play a game where lycanthropes are common foes, silver weapons become more powerful. If you play a game where undead are common, turn undead becomes more powerful. A game with many mages makes the Mage Slayer feat better. Not the same thing at all. The system itself makes power-attack too powerful, and by extension devalues all attack forms other than two-handed power attack forms. Unless every single character - or ok, even half or 2/3 or so - has that feat, it's not a major problem. Let the fighter dish out more damage. Isn't it the job of the DM to make encounters tailored to the party? If he slices and dices through things, bump up the frequency of archers who avoid melee, or toss in a couple of golems or something with obscene DR/natural armour. Given the proposed "physics" of the world, virtually every character and intelligent monster "must" take the power-attack feat just to keep up. That's a huge balance issue. The idea that a rule is "worthless" because of one feat that is tailored to a specific type of character is, quite frankly, ridiculous. If you have a party consisting entirely of two-hander melee types, then they deserve to be able to cleave through things - and get shot to pieces when they find some archers. If it's just one guy, he's the meatshield, he should be able to wade into combat, if he's focused on just powering through enemies. No. It's called seeing how a common feat exposes a hole in the proposed rule that wasn't expected. -Polaris
theotherdraxen 02-21-07, 02:43 AM	I... wait... what? Yes, exactly. ;) As someone who uses the AC-as-DR variant as sort of a "default house rule" in my games, I've heard that before. I'm curious as to how it adds so much more time and complexity. As I stated above. Players have to do more math, and it slows down combat. Plus, recalculating your AC and DR whenever you change armor is harder. You still have an AC score. There's a single step more in working it out, but it's written down afterwards. Is remembering 14 so much harder than 16? Nope, but you will get hit more often due to it, and In combat, you compare the attack roll against your AC, exactly like normal. You then subtract a single number from the damage dealt. Me: You take 53 damage. Player: Okay, so I have DR 2, that leave me with 51 damage, from my total hp of 127, which is now... As you can see, the player now has to juggle 3 number in their head with two subtraction problems. Damage-DR, and HP-Gross Damage. It turns the whole process from X=A-B into X=A-(B-C), or X=A-B+C. A three step algebraic process that needs to be solved while you're trying to find where you wrote down your potion of cure serious and trying to judge how far away the cleric is. If your turn is up next (or even soon) then you have a very real time limit on how long you can take. Players are already slow enough as is, and not all of us have very good mental math skills. It's a single step extra, and a minor one at that (hands up who can't manage to subtract 3?). Yes, it's done repeatedly at high levels, but still, it's so incredibly minor... if you're getting bogged down by the mind-melting difficulty of "Hmm... 12 minus 2...", it ain't at all good. No, you're getting bogged down by: "Okay so that was a full attack, so three times my DR from the total damage. Wait, did I subtract my DR from the energy damage? I shouldn't have..." It's even worse in games with a lot of goons, since you're having tons of weak attacks tossed at you. I realise that, at higher levels, there's a lot of these minor subtractions, but considering it's not going to get past 4/- or so, you should just be able to fly through it. Barbarians don't seem to have any major issues with it, nor do dread necromancers. From memory, warlocks get some minor DR as well. Those are people planning on having DR, and don't have to recalculate every time they get into a new suit of armor. To each his own, I guess, but I struggle to comprehend how this could be time consuming, unless you've got a party of hasted monks. Or a party facing off against multiple enemies. Or dealing with players that aren't quite as fast with their math and didn't want DR in the first place. Not to mention the tedious imbalance that occurs from even mid-level to hit vs damage values. You increase your to-hit by at most 3 per level, whereas your damage increases by 6 or more per level. I can't really speak for high levels, as my experience with anything above about 15 is sorely lacking, but at lower levels, perhaps the only difference I've seen is that PCs aren't quite as likely to fall from a single lucky strike or Sneak Attack. That 1 or 2 less damage doesn't sound like much, but when you've only got 20 or so, it really does help. My players requested it to be removed at level 5. I think all in all, you may be forgetting that combat is pretty slow as is, and having extra DR for every character tends to bog the game down more than people want to. A lot of folks don't like it. I'm not sure why - as I said, I like it so much that it's now more or less a default house rule for any game I run. For the OP, I reccomend you give it a go, tell your players it's a trial - maybe even run a one or two session adventure as a separate trial. If you like it - great! You've got what you're after. If you don't, no harm, no foul. You can forget it, or find/make something else. But give it a go. I guess I agree here. I'd recommend not making my same mistake, but maybe it'll turn out differently. I'm with ticattack on this one. A game is as balanced as a group wants it to be. That's debatable. How do you balance the CoDzilla with the Basketweaver? My group has no interest in playing beyond 12th level in D&D because of the power creep, and the overabundance of power compared to the "regular" folks in that world is stretching suspension of disbelief a little too much for our tastes. Iron Heroes is a really popular game that seems to have a lot of satisfied customers and Armor As DR is built into the core rules. I even went to far as to make Armor as DR even more important at low to mid levels. I swap out the AC bonus point for point into DR and make it variable, just like Iron Heroes, and it works fine. Yeah, a guy in full plate can absorb up to 8 pts. per strike. How many 1st-4th level characters can even afford full plate? Wouldn't a low level character be intimidated and afraid to fight the guy in the tin can with their rusty shortsword anyway? My players have no desire to be invincible characters and love the threat of danger and the actual risk of losing those characters. Not all that broken, really. The worst combo I can forsee is someone getting Mountain Plate and playing a Dwarf Berserker (barbarian) to level 20 for a total DR of 20/-, but by then he's dealing with stuff that can deal out 100's of damage anyway. The only rules you need in your game are the ones that help you tell the best story possible. :D Biggest QFT I can offer. Erm... sorry, let me get this straight: The main part of your problem with AaDR is that Power Attack with a two-handed weapon breaks it? Not quite that, but that damage tends to increase a lot faster than AC. Hence why fighters get +1 bab per level, but +5 hit points. Power Attack is already one of the most mechanically superior feats: this just worsens thing.
Hida Reju 02-21-07, 11:31 AM	Well you guys are hitting the DR problem on the head the wrong way. DR for armor works when you also include Class defense bonus option from Unearthed arcana and allow it to replace the AC bonus from armor. You do have to allow people to have the AC bonus on top of reducing the armor AC bonus to near 0. Now AC scales with lvl like attack bonuses and armor can still provide a nice boost. Especially if the enhancement bonus to armor allows for more DR. Lets be perfectly honest on armor any DR exceeding 20 that can not be countered at all leads down the road of only mages and uberchargers getting played. To be honest the best armor to defense system out there for d20 is Spycraft 2.0. But it also included things like weapon qualities for weapons like Armor piercing (x) that would let certain weapons and attacks bypass some of the armor. It also had an attack mechanic to allow you to bypass armor by accepting a penalty to your attack roll based on the class of the armor Partial, heavy, or full. So for a happy medium I would propose to use UA class def bonus while armored combined with the total removal of AC bonuses to armor class from Armor and replacing the AC with a modified DR raiting. Shields should still be an AC bonus because unless its a Tower shield its there to make you harder to hit cleanly not damage. Power attack should still be more useful to counter DR but by my count since DR from multiple sources do not stack the max DR a person should get is around 15-20. Also its time to make Magic armor cost as much as a magic weapon to balance it out. Just be prepaired for fights to take a lot longer or for people to min/max pure damage a lot more. But it does make Crits more useful for a change.
BobbyMac 02-23-07, 10:32 PM	I think I'm following all the ideas in this thread but if I am reading correctly you guys are NOT talking about the UA Armor as Damage Reduction (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm#armorDamageRe ductionValues) rules which lowers the usual AC of armor but adds DR also but are talking about replacing AC completely with DR. If so then what do you guys think of the UA Variant? If not then please ignore and I shall suffer lashes....:)
The_Levitator 02-23-07, 11:13 PM	I think I'm following all the ideas in this thread but if I am reading correctly you guys are NOT talking about the UA Armor as Damage Reduction (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm#armorDamageRe ductionValues) rules which lowers the usual AC of armor but adds DR also but are talking about replacing AC completely with DR. If so then what do you guys think of the UA Variant? If not then please ignore and I shall suffer lashes....:) You are correct! :) We actually started with UA variant before slowly evolving to what we are using now. I think the UA variant is a great starting point for getting into the idea of using an AaDR system. I also think it's always important to think about before making any changes to your system is to know your group. We've been making small changes here and there to our system to help me describe the action of our games better. Our system probably has a lot more holes than Core. But since we don't have any loophole-seeking rules lawyers, we don't run into those kinds of problems. To us, the rules of D&D are just a mechanical guide to help us tell a fantastic story and have a ton of fun together. My reasoning for wanting to just swap out the AC bonus to a DR bonus is that AaDR helps me add to the description. The same goes for the Opposed Defense Roll variant. I only add variants to increase my ability to describe what's happening to my players. The feel we are trying to get from our campaign world is the "it's the character, not their gear" kind of world. So we have high magic/low availability in our world. I give out ability points every 3 levels instead of every 4. I give out feats every other level instead of every 3 levels. The Armor as DR variant, for us, has seemed to make combat a little more dangerous, and more vivid because I have more information with which to interpret and use to build a description. I totally envy DM's that can play Core and with nothing but a static AC and attack roll, find thousands of ways to describe combat without sounding repetitive. I'm a pretty good storyteller, but I'm not that good. So, I look for variants that might help me better visualize the action so that I can give better descriptions. Reading thousands of posts on several different forums has taught me that just about any rule can be loop-holed, circumvented or shown to be broken/unbalanced if a person is determined enough to get around it. It's just a storytelling game to us. The rules help keep the story somewhat grounded in a world with somewhat real physics and a somewhat realistic cause-and-effect fell for your world. The rules also help D&D play like a game, which makes it more cooperative and interactive than me just telling stories to my group. I've heard of the type of people who find loopholes in the rules of Monopoly just to win. There's nothing wrong with that, so long as everyone else playing the game has a similar mindset. And in our group, it's about the storyline and spending quality time as friends. If you have "munchkins" or "powergamers" in your group, I would be very cautious to add anything to core. BTW, I hate the term "munchkin". It sound derogatory to me and seems to try to demean those who prefer that play style. "Powergamer" doesn't sound much better. Even though we are a much more story-driven group, I don't see anything wrong with playing the game as more of a board-game style of crunching numbers and maximizing and pushing the limits of a rule-set to make the best characters possible. The world isn't black & white and neither is D&D, as is evidenced by the myriad of playing styles, house rules and variants. My view is the same for gaming as it is for life. I'll try anything that I think might make it just a little bit better for me. And what makes life, and in turn gaming, better for me may not have the same effects for you. Good groups work together to find their game style. The very reason there are house rules is because the entire world does not view fantasy roleplaying the same way. So we tweak here, alter this, change that, until we find a system that works for us. If your group is interested in having the best experience possible, try everything out there you can find that you think will increase your group's enjoyment of the game. Because in the end, it's just a game, and rules that can be changed can just as easily be changed back! ;)